CIPR INSIDE WEBINAR: Internal

Communication and

Employee Engagement

2013

CIPR INSIDE WEBINAR

Welcome

Kevin Ruck

PR Academy

@AcademyKev exploringinternalcommunication.com

kevin.ruck@pracademy.co.uk

Just 27% of employees

in the UK are ‘highly

engaged’, with an

equivalent proportion of

employees being

‘disengaged’.

Engage for Success

Engagement

MacLeod and Clarke (2009) Engaging for Success

Leadership

Provides a strong strategic narrative.

Engaging Managers

Facilitate and empower.

Voice

Views are sought out; people see

that their opinions count.

Integrity

Behaviour is consistent with stated values.

Co

mm

un

ica

tio

n

Employee engagement theory

• Characterised by the beginnings of practitioner interest and

the term employee engagement came into use, widely

credited as being coined by consultancy firm Gallup in 1999.

Wave 1:

1990s

Wave 2:

2000 - 2005

Wave 3:

2006 - 2010

• Robinson et al., (2004) defined the concept as a positive

employee attitude towards the organisation and its values,

involving awareness of business context, and work to

improve job and organisational effectiveness.

• Saks (2006) extended the employee engagement concept to

encompass both job engagement and organisation

engagement. Saks's work is significant because it tackles

the question of the status of the concept.

Welch (2011)

In his original study that outlines the basis for employee engagement, Kahn (1990, p.

693), defines it as, “…the harnessing of organization members’ selves to their work

roles; in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively

and emotionally during role performances”.

Work engagement Organisational engagement

The work you do The vision of the organisation, where it’s headed

The team work environment The values of the organisation, what it believes in

Personal development opportunities The perceived support given to all employees

The relationship with your line manager The way that senior managers communicate with all employees

The opportunity to have a say about what goes on in your team

The opportunity to have a say about what goes on in the organisation

The response provided by a line manager to views expressed

The response provided by senior managers to views expressed

Work engagement

Intellectual engagement

I focus hard on my work

I concentrate on my work

I pay a lot of attention to my work

Affective engagement

I feel positive about my work

I feel energetic in my work

I am enthusiastic in my work

Social engagement

I share the same work values as

my colleagues

I share the same work goals as my

colleagues

I share the same work attitudes as

my colleagues

Organisational engagement

Think

I think about improvements to help

my organisation operate more

effectively

Feel

I feel positive about working for my

organisation

Do

I put extra effort in to help the

organisation succeed

Employees’ organisational commitment (%)

https://www.gov.uk/government/pub

lications/the-2011-workplace-

employment-relations-study-wers

21,981 respondents in

the UK

Three components of

employee engagement

Truss et al.(2006)

Manager

commitment

Feeling well

informed

Opportunities for

upward

feedback

49% Employees feel fairly well informed about important

organisational issues

29% Received only a limited amount of information

13% Reported they received not much at all

Truss et al.(2006)

Informed Employee Voice

Truss et al. (2006)

Feel

informed

Have opportunity for

upward

communication

Low/med

Low/med High

High

Informed Non-Communicators (6%)

Fully/fairly well informed but little

opportunity

to feed information upwards

Informed Communicators (32%)

Fully/fairly well informed and have

opportunity

for upward communication

This group is highly engaged

Uninformed Non-Communicators

(18%)

Little/no information and lack of

opportunity

for upward feedback

Uninformed Believers (5%)

Little information but have opportunity

to feed information upwards

Fence sitters

(39%)

Case study

HP

Discover 2012

“We highlighted times when Meg [CEO] would be

speaking about strategy, or when someone would be

talking about innovation or plans for the future. As

financial information was unveiled at the meeting,

MacNeil [VP Global Employee Comms] and her team

were able to simultaneously on the intranet.”

“They [employees] were getting information at the same

time as the analysts. But the key difference was that, for

the first time ever, the information was being put into

context for Hewlett Packard employees.”

Oct 2013

corpcommsmagazine.co.uk

Reinforced by

managers who

are open to

critical feedback.

Advanced

Based on people

feeling well

informed in the first

place, face to face,

actions taken as a

result or reasons

why action not

taken provided.

Basic Surveys, suggestion schemes, email boxes.

Upward feedback

Employees’ rating of management’s active

consulting (%)

Case study

Essex County Council

Your Voice

“In 2011, we ran our first ‘Your Voice’

engagement day. This was followed

up in 2012. On one day we held 48

separate face-to-face events which

enabled over 800 employees to have

discussions with senior leaders.”

http://ciprinside.co.uk/learning/

case-studies/

Case study

Glasgow Housing Association

Think Yes

“The objective of Think Yes was to raise

customer satisfaction levels by asking staff to

think positively when faced with a

customer request.”

“There is a popular Think Yes area on the

intranet. Colleagues can post any major

'blockage' anonymously if they feel it can't be

discussed with their manager. Again, we solve

the problem then openly publish the blockage

and solution.”

http://ciprinside.co.uk/learning/

case-studies/

PhD research

Internal Communication and Organisational

Engagement Questionnaire (ICOEQ)

123 closed questions using a 5 point Likert scale and

four open questions:

1. Information interests

2. Helpfulness of communication methods

3. General satisfaction with communication

4. Senior manager communication

5. Line manager level communication

6. Peer group level communication

7. Organisational engagement

Welch (2011)

5 organisations

2066 responses to survey

27 interviews

9 focus groups with 77

people

Differences in satisfaction

between organisations are

significant, for example,

satisfaction with ways to

communicate ideas to

senior managers varied

from 18% to 65%

Correlations: strategic planning

Analysing the strength of the

association of a specific aspect of

communication with a specific

aspect of engagement.

For example, satisfaction with

employee voice and emotional

organisational engagement.

Organisational Engagement

Internal Communication

Plans and aims

Change Progress

Employee Voice

Senior Managers

Informed

employee

voice

Informed

employee

voice

Feel

Think

What I do for the

organisation

Do

Diagram to represent summary of associations between internal communication and organisational

engagement based on 2066 responses from employees in five organisations

Source: Ruck (2013) Unpublished PhD research at University of Central Lancashire,

How to help employees get

strategy

Harvard Business Review – research

based on 60, 000 responses.

“Top management has a profound impact on

how well employees grasp and support

strategy – far more than any other variable.

Supervisors don’t play a direct role.”

“Only top leaders can give strategic

communication the appropriate weight.” Galunic and Hermreck (Dec 2012)

Senior management

understanding Practitioners’ perception of stakeholders who think that internal communications is really

important:

Ruck and Trainor

(2012)

Changing internal communication practice

Q4. In an ideal world, how would you change the amount of time spent on these priorities

Ruck and Trainor

(2012)

More

Same

Less

Evidence based practice

CIPR INSIDE WEBINAR

Comments,

questions,

challenges?

CIPR INSIDE WEBINAR: ENGAGEMENT LEADS TO PERFORMANCE CIPR INSIDE

Tuesday 19 November

Ask the Guru: Pros and cons of social media with Marc Wright,

Ghassan Karian and Euan Semple

Thursday 28 November

♯insidestory awards - deadline to enter

Friday 29 November

Webinar: Being a strategic business partner with James Harkness and

Jane Mitchell from Harkness Kennett

February 2014

Qualifications: CIPR internal communication certificate and diploma

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